Re-inventing the business for Covid-19

According to my Facebook post, we are probably around 25 or 26th day since the lock down started and around 20 days of curfew. As at today (6pm), official stats in Mauritius show around 324 positive cases (including 261 active), 9 deaths and around 51 recovered along with 0 positive cases for past 48 hours with a total of 8279 tests done in the island.

And unofficially, around 800,000 people either want to go back to work or back to school as soon as possible and as long as it is safe to do so.

Handling the crisis

By now, I believe that there is no more rush towards supermarkets, shops and medical stores. Suddenly, most people got enough gas cylinders at home too. Personally, I believe that lack of communication was the key factor which drove people massively to pile up their stuffs, whether we are talking about food, medical stuffs or gas. Some were right to do so because for a few couple of days, everything were closed down. Just in some words, earlier closure of airport, and alphabetic order shopping from the start would have changed everything. In fact, the alphabetic shopping should have been applied for purchase of gas cylinders too. Anyway, it is no use crying over spilled milk now.

With the appearance of the official Covid-19 cases quite late, I have the impression that we haven’t learnt much from other countries. And by we, I mean, the authorities and some percentage of the population too, the ones we call the #COCOVID

Office jobs are now more lovely

What was previously impossible is now suddenly possible, especially in the private sector. Jobs which required you to be in front of your desk from 9am to 5pm (or whatever) can now be done from home. They now call it Work From Home, abbreviated as wfhhdhdjsksh.

And the best thing is that, they got more flexible too ;

• You can work at ease, as long as your daily tasks are achieved
• You can now attend meetings directly through video conferencing
• No need for suits or ties. Your favorite home clothes will do the job. We all love them, they are so comfortable, even if they have holes or been worn up or discolored through the numerous washing cycles.
• Use of mobile phones is now compulsory during working hours.

And the best thing? You can wake up at 8:30am, brush your teeth (?) and attend a meeting with your CEO within the next minutes. Oops, I forgot if you need to bath or not?

Even ministers are now video conferencing live on television from their home but they can’t do the parliamentary debates from home yet. That will be a problem for the loudspeaker sir.

Anyway, I believe that as from now, companies should not have any excuse for not allowing their employees to work from home.

Your shopping

To be sincere, I was initially writing this post to talk only about my shopping experience during this lock down period but later on, I kept adding other things like the above. Let’s go into a small review now :

Winners 👎👎👎👎👎👎👎

I particularly want to express my deceipt towards Winner’s e-commerce and home delivery lately. It is not just during the lockdown, but since some time before. Let me list them :

(1) For the order I picked up on the 4th March 2020 at Winners’ Candos, they forgot to give me a bag of frozen stuffs. I do not usually double verify my stuffs on the counter as I trusted them. When I reached home, I noted the missing stuffs. I had to phone their hotline the next day and do necessary arrangements so that I could collect them in the evening. Also, point to note : The staff no more drives your filled up caddie to your car. You do it yourself, unlike the first times and as described in my article here.

(2) Some months back, they forgot to give me a pack of water and this time, I was really impressed. Their call center gave me a phone call during the day to inform me that they forgot the pack of water and they will deliver it to me. I did not mind this error at that time, but looks like it is becoming a regular thing.

(3) On 26th March 2020 (during lockdown) and prior setting up of survival packs, I ordered some stuffs online. That order was immediately confirmed through a mail.

The next day, the order was cancelled. No reason specified. Nothing.

(4) On the 30th of March, once the survival packs were set up and the site launched “properly”, I made my purchases and my order was once again confirmed through mail for home delivery.

Four days later, I got a mail informing me that my order was cancelled because of a technical issue on their e-commerce which took more orders than necessary :

That was really “la goutte d’eau qui fait déborder le vase”! I just hope that they fired the one who configured the system and just for info, you lost an e-commerce client. I’m also gonna update my initial article with my recent experiences.

After the misadventure with Winners, I was quite reluctant to try the smaller delivery companies. If a company with a dedicated e-commerce and delivery service failed to fulfill orders, would other smaller companies succeed?

👍 FoodMoris.com 👍

Well, I was wrong by trusting the giant, which turned out to be sh*t.

While surfing (yeah, we all do that whole day long now), I found a Nestle Pampering Pack (with choco, cereal bars, coffee).

Things which we needed at home. Not basic stuffs but that’s why it was called pampering pack. I placed the order on the site and paid the order via MCB Juice. The 2nd day after, I got a confirmation mail and surprisingly, late that evening, I was delivered at my doorstep.

Delivery was done under 48 hours fron the minute I ordered.

So, as I posted on Facebook, I definitely recommend them!

Link : https://www.foodmoris.com/

👍 Edendale.eshops.mu 👍

Next, we tried Edendale. With a capacity of 200 orders per day, the site automatically closes after reaching the limit.

On Day 1, the site was closed at around 5pm.

When I tried on Day 2, I succeeded in placing the order before it closed down. And it was around 11am.

I just had a look right now when writing this post : It is 10pm and the site is still up. So, it looks like they are not overloaded.

Coming back to the order, it was delivered less than 24 hours after the order was placed. Payment was done directly online through their own system.

Link : https://edendale.eshops.mu/

👍 Cocogrill and CocoChill 👍

So, after more than 2 weeks of lockdown, the fridge started to get empty. It was time to order some chicks chicken. That’s how I came across the Facebook page of CocoGrill and CocoChill. At that time (Saturday 1th April), they had a chicken pack at Rs 1,350 including delivery (Price revised to Rs 1,100 + 100 delivery fee later on)

I called the number of the post and placed the order, initially planned for Monday. The following day, I was politely informed that because of the Easter celebrations, my order will be delivered on Tuesday instead. No issue for me, as long as my order isn’t cancelled, just like Winners’ did.

So, earlier today, I got a text message informing me of the delivery along with the phone number of the driver. I got in touch with him and he showed up early afternoon with fresh chicken.

After the delivery of the box from a refrigerated vehicle, they drove away and I MCB juiced them Rs 1,100 + Rs100 delivery fee as they reviewed their advertised price meanwhile.

Awesome!

Link : https://www.facebook.com/cocogrillmauritius/

Price of vegetables

Despite the numerous announcement on the national television, I really think that the either people taking the decision “live in a bubble” or they are completely blind and deaf.

ps : I don’t have any picture of vegetables to put in here 😦

I have been purchasing our veggies from people in my neighborhood and the prices are nowhere near the recommended prices, set by authorities.

Summing up

The post is already quite long. So, I will probably come up with a new blog later on. We have at least 2 more weeks of curfew to go. But working parents with small kids will relate : It is not an easy job to look after them and wfhedfjfhde.

Hope that all of you are staying at home as much as possible.

Keep Safe and #ResteLakaaz

Cheers!

btw, I hate that weird abbreviation for work from home. That’s why I randomly type some more additional characters in it.